Marie Sivak

Mnemosyne's Mnemonic

November 1 – 24, 2008

We are pleased to present sculpture and drawing by guest artist, Marie Sivak. This exhibition, entitled, Mnemosyne’s Mnemonic represents the Greek goddess of memory and considers the possibility of prompting our intangible and poetic memories through familiar objects. Sivak, inspired by her background in installation art, and an interest in conceptual and decorative arts, explores the associations between emotional and analytical perceptions. “Telephones, needles and strings, a book, or an opened suitcase, become purveyors of meaning in a fictionalized memoir made of carved stone sculptures, video and drawings.” Her mixed media presentations evoke ethereal and ephemeral duplicity: love and beauty, anger and betrayal, loss and longing. Connections are made between what we experience or recollect and the perceptions that form our referential grounding. Sivak gives a poetic response to these unseen cultural relationships and the importance of remembering.

A native of Ohio, Marie Sivak received her BFA in Sculpture from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 1994 and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in 1997. Sivak has exhibited her work since the early 1990s in America, including Philadelphia, Washington DC, and New York, and internationally, in Britain, Wales, Italy, and Peru. She has received many awards including two grants from the Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland, The Ruth Chenven Grant for Visual Arts in New York, a residency at the Berllanderi Sculpture Workshop in Wales, a Professional Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and recently an award from the Yeck National Young Sculptor’s Competition in Ohio. Her drawing is in the prestigious collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She has taught sculpture and drawing at Portland Community College since 1997.